As a whole, the teachings of the prior art demonstrate that it has largely been pre-occupied with other priorities within this niche. For instance, much art is devoted to varied apparatus for allowing one wireless phone to share two (or more) telephone numbers (or SIMs) or conversely for allowing one SIM card to be shared between two masters (as between a cellular radiotelephone and multi-mode satellite radiotelephone as detailed for instance in U.S. Pat. No. 6,141,564 to Bruner, et al. entitled: “Method of Sharing a SIM Card Between Two Masters”).
And similarly, other art has likewise been devoted to switching between multiple SIM cards within a wireless phone as to maximize time-of-day discounts (consider for instance European Patent Application 1098543 by Fragola, F.), or as to lower roaming costs (consider U.S. patent application publication no. 2002/0154632 by Wang, Yung-Feng et al.) and so forth.
Other inventions, as UK Patent No. 2375261 to Hiltunen, M. entitled: “Transfer of SIM Data Between Mobile Computing Devices”, are devoted to ‘acquiring’ the identification information contained within the SIM card of one mobile phone and transferring it to another, thereby creating a manner of ‘virtual’ SIM, thereby obviating for physically transferring SIM cards between wireless devices and the corresponding lag and down-time associated with such.
Still further art as U.S. Pat. No. 6,466,804 to Pecen, et al. entitled: “Method and Apparatus for Remote Multiple Access to Subscriber Identity Module”, details a method and apparatus for remote multiple access to services of a subscriber identity module (SIM) card by multiple subscriber devices in a GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) system. The crux of the subject matter delineated thereof deals with the scenario whereby multiple wireless devices use a single SIM. Whereas the invention of present seeking the protection of Letters Patent effectively enables multiple independent SIMs (e.g. with individual IMSIs) to appear as a single SIM for the purpose of providing telephony services via a macroscopic (GSM) carrier.
Some relevant GSM standards are: (1) GSM 03.40, Digital cellular telecommunications system (Phase 2+)—Technical realization of the Short Message Service (SMS); (2) GSM 09.02, Mobile Application Part (MAP) Specification; and (3) GSM 03.90, Digital Cellular Telecommunications System (Phase 2+)—Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD)—Stage 2.